The making of a confection often requires that a metered quantity of edible material be deposited in a cup or container and then appropriately shaped. For example, in making a frozen shaved water-ice confection, commonly known as Sno-cones, ice fragments are deposited in a cup. The ice is then compacted and shaped and then syrup is deposited over the shaped mass.
Heretofore, machines for making confections of this type have been slow and required significant manual effort on the part of an operator. One reason is that the loading of ice fragments into cups is much more difficult than may be expected because they tend to stick to the equipment. In addition, the ice must be compacted in each cup without breaking the cup and without slowing up the production process.